Loren Coleman

Being broadcast tonight, and reportedly to be repeated for months to come, will be "Weird Travels: Lake Monsters" (Sunday, 23 October 2005, 10:00 p.m. Eastern) on the Travel Channel. The episode details cryptozoological research and hunts for the Loch Ness Monsters (Nessie) at Loch Ness, Scotland, and Champ at Lake Champlain in New York, Vermont, and Quebec. The producer and crew stopped by to interview me on August 10, and they had just been to Lake Champlain. My time with them was serious and well-balanced. They did tell me that they had just taped footage of the Vermont Expos mascot, [...]

Phantom Felids Roam the Country…Still Whether you call them Phantom Panthers, Black Panthers, Mystery Felids, or Mystery Cats, sightings and reports from North America’s Midwest and East continue to roll in. The Associated Press’ Jim Suhr, with a dateline out of Carbondale, Illinois has written a good summary article of recent happenings. Carbondale was my old stomping grounds in 1965-1969, when I was being educated as an undergraduate Saluki, at Southern Illinois University. It was a hot spot from which to study reports of cryptid felines back then, so there’s no reason to think it would change now, what, forty [...]

Creature From the Black Lagoon and Coelacanths You know that cryptozoology is having a culturally significant impact when a movie 50 years old, inspired by a cryptozoological event, is being remade. Variety announced last week that Universal has hired Breck Eisner, the director of last spring’s "Sahara," to steer "Creature From the Black Lagoon" into the mainstream, for a new era of movie viewers, many who are fascinated by real-life cryptids. The original concept for the movie developed from the excitement in the early 1950s that surrounded the Comoros Islands (near Madagascar) discovery of a "living fossil," the coelacanth. After [...]

The Search Continues for Cassie and her friends The coast seems a little bit lonelier these days. Cassie, the name I coined long ago to characterize these cryptids seen near Portland, Maine, was bestowed in the same tradition that all of these watery creature monikers are given – with location, location, and fun in mind. But it’s been a few years since anyone has seen Cassie, the Casco Bay Sea Serpent. As it turns out, of course, Portland is not alone in missing its New England Sea Serpents. "All Things Maine" blogger Christopher Dunham gives a historically good overview of [...]

Off to the Boston area for a little trip down memory lane. Fox 25 News is interviewing me for a Halloween feature on the Dover Demon. The name, a moniker I coined to denote this small, weird, orangish creature seen by four witnesses in late April 1977, is one that stuck. The drawings by the eyewitnesses and the encounter itself have traveled down through the years as vivid images that appear to well up the closer we get to Halloween every year. The iconic Dover Demon even has been made into tiny Japanese figurines, and I’ve heard, characters in computer [...]

Watching a tribute on ESPN to Tiger Woods tonight, an ad flashes on. People are describing something they have seen on a golf course, large, with a flat face, and other imagery that any Bigfooter would recognize as reflective of our quest. Then, SQ appears, followed by other letters…until you see "SASQUATCH…Coming in November." Nike is introducing a new club named "SasQuatch," and the ads are certainly entertaining. Meanwhile, a few months ago, I was interviewed by GolfStyles Ohio reporter Jon E. Hale about sightings of Bigfoot (Eastern Bigfoot, Windigo, Marked Hominoids?) near Ohio golf courses. Jon informs me the [...]

Duel Masters Withdraws and Rescinds $1M Bounty Hunt (Renton, Wash.) As noted by international cryptozoologist and author Loren Coleman earlier this week, the Duel Masters trading card game produced by Wizards of Coast [Hasbro, Inc.’s (NYSE: HAS)], explored the possibility of sponsoring a one million dollar bounty hunt that would encourage the live safe capture of Bigfoot, Yeti (Abominable Snowman) or Nessie (Loch Ness Monster). Prior to the start of the promotion, Duel Masters reconsidered based on safety concerns for both the public and for creatures-at-large. Specifically, Duel Masters feared that untrained cryptozoologists would engage in unsafe behaviors in their [...]

Duel Masters Withdraws and Rescinds $1M Bounty Hunt (Renton, Wash.) As noted by international cryptozoologist and author Loren Coleman earlier this week, the Duel Masters trading card game produced by Wizards of Coast [Hasbro, Inc.’s (NYSE: HAS)], explored the possibility of sponsoring a one million dollar bounty hunt that would encourage the live safe capture of Bigfoot, Yeti (Abominable Snowman) or Nessie (Loch Ness Monster). Prior to the start of the promotion, Duel Masters reconsidered based on safety concerns for both the public and for creatures-at-large. Specifically, Duel Masters feared that untrained cryptozoologists would engage in unsafe behaviors in their [...]

English newspapers are reporting today, October 18, that Michael Ward has died at the age of 80. Ward was the expedition doctor on Sir Edmund Hillary’s expedition to explore routes up Mt. Everest. Ward, more importantly, to cryptozoology, was the doctor who was along with Eric Shipton when the now well-known Yeti or Abominable Snowman tracks were taken in 1951. “Michael Phelps Ward was born on March 26 1925 in London, and educated at Marlborough….Michael Ward, who died on October 7, married Felicity Jane Ewbank in 1957. She survives him with a son,” reported the London Telegraph, in today’s editions.

The conference in Texas was, once again, an event not to be missed. I’ve just landed late tonight in Portland, to find, of course, my email box filled and the phone message machine overflowing. I’ll have to deal with all of that tomorrow, but for now, around midnight, it will be just thoughts of good memories of many warm and generous people sharing stories, fun moments, and themselves. Thanks to all of you and the time you gave to make my journey to and from Texas, and there, so enjoyable. I’ll have some reflections that I will share over the [...]